Under the weather

I have been under the weather and had to stay in bed, however because of that I got to read. I am back and will be posting soon.

Cheever, Susan

Cheever, Susan "Home Before Dark: A Biographical Memoir of John Cheever by His Daughter" Houghton Mifflin:1984

When John Cheever was popular I was very young. There was not a lot of young adult fiction to read, so I read adult fiction as well. I did not understand his books. To me, his books were about suburbia and I hated it. My family had moved there when the house that the government owned was condemned to make way for a new housing project for officer and non-commissioned officers in Southern California. I liked the house where we moved but not the families that lived there.

I was emerging into my teenage years. I did not like what was happening to the families of the kids I played with. Everyone seemed so unhappy. I think I saw that it in Cheever's books. No one knew what to believe in anymore. Maybe, this is a reflection of what I saw in my own family. For some reason I felt as if the books of John Cheever, John Steinbeck, Earnest Hemingway stood for that way of life.

I have found out since then I was wrong about Steinbeck. He is now a favorite of mine. I also read everything by Hemingway. I did read "The Wapshot Scandal" or maybe it was the "Wapshot Chronicle" by Cheever but I may have been too young to read a novel about adultery and not paying one's taxes. I know that I had to look up the difference between adultery and fornication and could not find it. I ended up asking someone who luckily told me. The whole thing seemed so dull to me. I think I read more science fiction in those days than I do now.

I have read other books of Susan Cheever and wonder if she was related to John Cheever and this book makes it very clear that she is. It is a biography of her father with her part in it. It is a fascinating read. She does not leave anything unflattering out. It is evident that she loves her father but it is also evident that she is aware of his faults. From her description of her life, it was evident he loved her too. He was a very confused man.

I love biographies of writers. Susan Cheever is a good writer and easy to read. I got into this book and never fell out. There was a lot about John Cheever that I did not know. For example, I had no idea he had a serious drinking problem and a problem with sexual addiction as well as a problem with homosexuality. It was a problem since it was a time when homosexuality was not accepted. It was hard on his family. John Cheever was raped as a child by his brother who he adored and admired. He never got over that. Again, everything is in this book because it is part of who he was; yet other loving and warm things about him are in here too.

There are other biographies of John Cheever, but no one could have written this particular one but his daughter. I think it is well worth reading. As for reading Cheever, I don't know. I may someday. I will definitely read another book by Susan Cheever to be sure.



Name of author: Susan Cheever

Dates of birth and death (if applicable): born July 31, 1943

Place of birth: New York City

Education: graduated Brown University in 1965. She teaches in the Bennington College M.F.A. program and at The New School.

Literary movement associated with author: She is a biographer and writes about addiction as well as novels. Her essay "Baby Battle," in which she describes immersion in early motherhood and subsequent phases of letting go of her primary identity as a mother, was included in the 2006 anthology Mommy Wars by Washington Post writer Leslie Morgan Steiner.

Nationality: United States of America

Notable award(s) or ideas (s): She is also a member of the Corporation of Yaddo and serves on the Author's Guild Council.


Books and years when published:

Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction "In a provocative and deeply personal look at the least acknowledged of all addictions, Cheever examines the ways in which sexually obsessed people confuse lust with love and the damage they do to themselves and those around them as they distort affection and desire with abuse and deception." --Booklist American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau Even the most devoted readers of nineteenth-century American literature often assume that the men and women behind the masterpieces were as dull and staid as the era's static daguerreotypes. Susan Cheever's latest work, however, brings new life to the well-known literary personages who produced such cherished works as The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Walden, and Little Women. Rendering in full color the tumultuous, often scandalous lives of these volatile and vulnerable geniuses, Cheever's dynamic narrative reminds us that, while these literary heroes now seem secure of their spots in the canon, they were once considered avant-garde, bohemian types, at odds with the establishment. My Name Is Bill: Bill Wilson--His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous In this definitive and groundbreaking biography, acclaimed author Susan Cheever offers a remarkably human portrait of a man whose life and work both influenced and saved the lives of millions of people. Drawing from personal letters, diaries, AA archives, interviews -- and Cheever's own experiences with alcoholism -- My Name Is Bill is the first fully documented, deeply felt account of Bill Wilson and Alcoholics Anonymous. As Good As I Could Be "Cheever's honest, realistic approach to the difficulties of parenting is refreshing, as is her optimistic belief that people can be good parents despite their own unhappy childhoods." --Publishers Weekly Home Before Dark In Home Before Dark, Susan Cheever, daughter of the famously talented writer John Cheever, uses previously unpublished letters, journals, and her own precious memories to create a candid and insightful tribute to her father. While producing some of the most beloved and celebrated American literature of this century, John Cheever wrestled with personal demons that deeply affected his family life as well as his career. In this poignant memoir of a man driven by boundless genius and ambition, Susan Cheever writes with heartwrenching honesty of family life with the father, the writer, and the remarkable man she loved. Note Found in a Bottle "A memoir that floats like a sad song, with its themes the effervescence of champagne and the flatness of the morning after... A poignant and fortright tale of a rugged journey by an extraordinarily gifted writer." --Kirkus Reviews Treetops "Engrossing... moving... Treetops is Susan Cheever's... most satisfyingly realized work to date." --The Washington Post Book World "This smooth, articulate, inviting book takes us into the lair of a celebrated family. Susan Cheever, with keen observation and incisive character sketches, offers a tantalizingly spare memoir." --Houston Chronicle "Because it's such a fascinating family, it's a fascinating book, but it's not always a pretty story, and one has to admire Susan Cheever's courage in telling it... Her greatest gifts come across in her memoirs... Home Before Dark and Treetops have established her as a very accomplished writer." --New York Daily News Elizabeth Cole "The heroine... is a 30-year-old New York graphic designer whose father is a famous artist. When first met, Elizabeth is involved in an intense affair with Sebastian Smith, a successful, married art dealer; she is still haunted by memories of her former lover, journalist Patrick Casey..." --Publishers Weekly Doctors and Women Clarkson N. Potter, 1987 The Cage Houghton Mifflin, 1982 (hardcover) Random House, 1983 (paperback) A Handsome Man Publicist Hannah Bart goes to Ireland with her older lover, Sam Noble, to meet his estranged son, Travis, and finds herself in competition with the young man for his father's love. Looking for Work Simon & Schuster, 1980. Paperback: Fawcett, 1982.

Selected Works Addiction "Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction" "A short, steamy read." --New York Post "Literary History American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau Transcendentalism--the story behind the scenes." Biography "My Name Is Bill: Bill Wilson--His Life and the Creation of Alcoholics Anonymous" "As a biography of one of the most humane and beneficial Americans who ever lived, it is a national treasure." --Kurt Vonnegut "Memoir As Good As I Could Be Raising wonderful children in a difficult world" "Home Before Dark A poignant memoir of a man driven by boundless genius and ambition" . "Note Found in a Bottle" "Engrossing and remarkably devoid of self-flagellation." --Seattle Weekly "Treetops" "Ms. Cheever's. . . coolly intelligent perspective. . . provides a clear, hard-edged picture of the snobbery, sexism, Antisemitism adultery, alcoholism, and emotional dishonesty that were part and parcel of those swimming pools and tennis courts." --Wall Street Journal Novels "Elizabeth Cole" Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1989 Doctors and Women Clarkson N. Potter, 1987 "The Cage" Houghton Mifflin, 1982. Paperback: Random House, 1983. A Handsome Man Simon & Schuster, 1981. Paperback: Ballantine Group: 1982. "Looking for Work" Simon & Schuster, 1980. Paperback: Fawcett, 1982.

Audeguy, Stephane

S t é pha n e Audegu y "The Theory of Clouds" Translated from the French by Timothy Bent
Harcourt: 2005

Akira Kumo miraculously survived the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima only to reinvent himself as a man twenty years younger. Now an eccentric couturier living in Paris, he has the world’s largest collection of literature on clouds and meteorology, which he hires Virginie Latour to catalog. As they work, he tells her the stories of those who have devoted their lives to clouds: the English Quaker who first classified clouds, the painter who became obsessed with capturing clouds on canvas, and the wealthy late-nineteenth century amateur meteorologist Richard Abercrombie, photographer who may have created the only definitive catalog of clouds—but only one copy exists, and it has never been seen. Kumo sends Virginie to London to track down the fabled Abercrombie Protocol, a quest both surprising and wondrous, where love, like clouds, forms and transforms lives. Sensual, hypnotic, deeply erotic, "The Theory of Clouds" is a novel of clouds—both historical and imaginative—and how they shape our passions, our storms, and our stories.

The first sentence of the book starts: "All children become sad in the late afternoon, for they begin to comprehend the passage of time. The light starts to change. Soon they will have to head home, and to behave and to pretend." This sentence sets the tone of this book. The reader will rest in the person of the woman Akira Kumo has just hired to catalog his book collection of clouds. Virginie Latour is like most of us. We see the clouds. It is all around us, but we don't develop an interest beyond that.

I remember an artist who loved to travel. He told a story how he would travel to Italy and hike all over the places where there were evidence of the Ancient Romans. He spoke Italian very well since it was his first language growing up in Chicago. He loved to sketch and take pictures of things like the aqueducts that would span over small villages and pastures where Italians herded their sheep. More than a few times, my friend would be overcome by the beauty of these structures built so long ago and he would ask about living so close to them. One shepard who was herding his sheep for his father who was not far from them was typical. He would look puzzled at what the artist was talking about. They had gotten so used to being around those ancient monuments they receded into their memories. To them, they were commonplace. Maybe, clouds for all of us on our planet have become commonplace for us.

Abercrombie Protocol is the journal that is the thread that goes through the book even past the death of Kumo and Virginie Latour is on its trail. We, the reader read of its contents as we read of other people who were fascinated with clouds and then Virginie who fell under its spell too.


Biography of Author:

Stéphane Audeguy is an award-winning French novelist and essayist. He was born in Tours in 1964 and studied literature at the University of Paris, where he also taught. He served as an assistant professor at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville between 1986 and 1987. He returned to France and now lives in Paris where he teaches art history and film history at a local high school.

Audeguy has published two highly acclaimed novels: La théorie des nuages (translated as The Theory of Clouds) and Fils Unique (Only Son). The former was awarded the honorary Prix Maurice Genevoix from the French Academy, while the latter won the Prix des Deux Magots.
(Wikipedia)

MacLeod, Charlotte

"The Bilbao Looking Glass" by Charlotte MacLeod Avon: 1983


I have read this author before. She writes what is termed "cozies" as explained below. This book is in the series of Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn and is set before their marriage. I have found that I need this sort of book ever so often and as stated before it has to be written well and the mystery logical and well put together as well as likable characters that are well developed. MacLeod's books met this requirement very well.

Sarah Kelling is a recent widow who needs some rest from solving some mysteries in Boston. She goes to spend some time at her summer estate at Ireson's Landing. Art Investigator Max Bittersohn goes with her as her renter. He is going to live in the gatehouse while pressing Sarah to marry him. Sarah married her cousin Alexander, a man much older than herself but he died seven months prior. Ireson's Landing is full of her relatives and his since Bittersohn is also from that part of the world although not on the same side of the tracks.

Of course as in all murder mysteries, dead bodies follow the protagonist and one shows up hacked to death soon after their arrival along with the mystery of a antique Bilbao looking glass which shows up in her house. Along with eccentric relatives, amorous suitors and people all too happy to accuse Max of murder and theft of art objects. The pace is satisfactory and the conclusion ties up all ends well. There is humor and Sarah is plucky, fun and smart along with a handsome and intelligent fiance. It is a lot of fun and well worth reading on a cool autumn evening.


Name of author: Charlotte MacLeod AKA Alisa Craig

Dates of birth and death (if applicable): November 12, 1922 - January 14, 2005

Place of birth:Bath, New Brunswick, Canada,

Education: Art Institute of Boston

Literary movement associated with author:She specifically tailored her books to be "cozies", i.e. avoiding too much violence, gore, or sex. All feature a humorous and literate-yet-light style, likable protagonists, and eccentric casts of secondary characters.

Nationality: American citizen

Notable award(s) or ideas (s):MacLeod was co-founder and past president of the American Crime Writers League. She received a Nero Award for The Corpse in Oozak's Pond (1987), which was also nominated for an Edgar Award.

Books and years when published:

-- Mysteries starring Prof. Peter Shandy of (fictional) Balaclava Agricultural College [& Helen Marsh Shandy, DLS] --

• Rest You Merry (1979) -- Revised and expanded from a short story which became the 1st chapter +/-
• The Luck Runs Out (1981)
• Wrack and Rune (1982)
• Something the Cat Dragged In (1984)
• The Curse of the Giant Hogweed (1985)
• The Corpse in Oozak's Pond (1987)
• Vane Pursuit (1989)
• An Owl Too Many (1991)
• Something in the Water (1994)
• Exit the Milkman (1996)

-- Mysteries starring Sarah Kelling Kelling Bittersohn and/or art investigator Max Bittersohn, set among Boston's upper crust --

• The Family Vault (1980)
• The Withdrawing Room
  

• The Palace Guard (1982)
• The Bilbao Looking Glass (1983)
• The Convivial Codfish (1984)
• The Plain Old Man (1985)
• The Recycled Citizen (1988)
• The Silver Ghost (1988)
• The Gladstone Bag (1989)
• The Resurrection Man (1992)
• The Odd Job (1995)
• The Balloon Man (1998)

-- Non-series books --

• Maid of Honor (1984)
• The Fat Lady's Ghost (1968)
• Ask Me No Questions (1971)
• Cirak's Daughter (1982)
• Grab Bag (1987) (short stories; including 2 about Max Bittersohn and Sarah Kelling, and one about Peter Shandy)
• It Was an Awful Shame and Other Stories (2002) (short stories; a reprint of Grab Bag but with 3 additional stories, including one about Max Bittersohn and Sarah Kelling)

As Alisa Craig:

-- Mysteries starring Madoc Rhys of the RCMP [& Janet (pronounced Jennet) Wadman Rhys] --

• A Pint of Murder (1980)
• Murder Goes Mumming (1981)
• A Dismal Thing to Do (1986)
• Trouble in the Brasses (1989)
• The Wrong Rite (1992)

-- Mysteries starring Dittany Henbit Monk, of the Lobelia Falls Grub-and-Stakers Gardening & Roving Club --

• The Grub-and-Stakers Move a Mountain (1981)
• The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee (1985)
• The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke (1988)
• The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn (1990)
• The Grub-and-Stakers House a Haunt (1993)

-- [Other books] --

• The Terrible Tide (1985) (I believe this is a non-series story -- ??)

Short-story collections edited by Charlotte MacLeod:

• Christmas Stalkings
• Mistletoe Mysteries

Black, Cara

"Murder in the Marais: An Aimee Leduc Investigation" Soho: 1999

This author certainly has her fans. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and teen son. I had looked forward to reading the above book which was based on a murder of a French Jewish woman in the Jewish quarter of Paris. It was written well. The characters were well developed, but I just did not care for it. I think it was because it was set in 1993 and involved Nazis. Some of the characters were the Neo Nazis but most of the mystery involved the old Nazis of World War II. I just could not buy those old Nazis making that much trouble so many years after the end of World War II.

The private detective Aimee Leduc is exciting and attractive and I had trouble with that as well. I don't expect detectives to look like Miss Marple, but having them super duper young ladies with fathers who are deceased but left them the business is for me a bit old. Still, this was not a badly written mystery novel. I might try it again as long as there is no Nazis in it.

Pattison, Eliot

Pattison, Eliot "The Skull Mantra" St. Martin's Minotaur: 1999

I mentioned in a post on current books that I am reading, this book. It is a mystery novel that won an Edgar. It is also by an author I had not read before. I had bought the book at Barnes and Noble in a promotion in which you buy two books and get the third free. All are qualify paperback and all three were by authors that I had not read before but looked interesting.

The blurb at the back of the book said that it was a sensation when it came out receiving wide acclaim from critics and readers alike. I did not remember it. It is ranked with "Gorky Park" and Smilla's Sense of Snow" as a novel as much about a people and a place. I loved both those novels and so bought this book. This book is about the Tibetans of the high Himalayas and a Chinese investigator who was a prisoner named Shan Tao Yun.

In the high mountains of Tibet, a prison work gang is building a road along with a prisoner who was sent to this work gang because he was too good of an investigator in Beijing. A headless corpse is found and work shuts down as the Tibetans refuse to continue the work. The man in charge gives Shan a temporary work release to find out who the corpse is and who committed the crime or the prisoners of the prison work gang will suffer. Then outside Chinese authorities arrest a Buddhist Hermit who Shan knows is innocent. He will be executed as others have been for other murders unless Shan can find out what is happening and who is responsible or if there is a demon loose as some Tibetans suspect.

The plot is complicated with many twists and turns, but it is sorted out by Chan after much skill and determination. Buddhism plays a strong role in this book and it is accurately portrayed or at least as far as I can determined. Chan has found Buddhism and incorporated it into his life. Tibet and Chan are at home with each other. I found in reading this book that I felt I was in the high mountains of the Himalayas. I also learned more of the pain and suffering that the Chinese Government brought to the people of Tibet.

When I read a book, I don't want to read or see anything of the author. Pattison does this very well. He does not push a particular point of view. People are portrayed as living characters both with good as well as the bad. There are some things that are strange and wonderful of Buddhism and that is in the book too, but I did not find it overly done either. I happen to believe some of the things that Buddhist Sages could do were true and some may have been exaggerated. That is the viewpoint of the book as well.

I have every intention of following the exploits of Chan and hopefully there are newer books.




Name of author: Eliot Pattison (Joseph Eliot Pattison is another pen name in international business relations)
Dates of birth and death (if applicable): October 20, 1951
Place of birth: unknown
Education: He is an attorney but where he went to law school is unknown
Literary movement associated with author: He is most known for the Inspector Chan series that is based on Tibet during modern times.
Nationality: He lives in the United States.
Notable award(s) or ideas (s):
The Skull Mantra won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel in 2000.
Books and years when published:

"Water Touching Stone" - Fiction - 2002 - 560 pages Cloistered in a remote sanctuary, Shan Tao Yun has received shattering news.Limited p "The Skull Mantra"‎ - Fiction - 2001 - 448 pages The corpse is missing its head and is dressed in American clothes. "Bone Rattler: A Mystery of Colonial America‎"2007 - 464 pages Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and seeming suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners "Beautiful Ghosts‎" 2005 - 368 pages Released unofficially from the work camp to which he'd been sentenced, Shan has been living in remote mountains of Tibet with a group of outlawed Buddhist monks "Bone Mountain‎" 2004 - 432 pages But the pilgrimage to this distant valley turns into a desperate flight when the monk guiding them is murdered and Shan learns that the stone eye was stolen "Prayer of the Dragon‎" 2008 - 362 pages " Surprises and mysteries abound here. This novel taught me more about Tibet-modern and ancient-than I had managed to learn elsewhere over the years. "The Lord of Death: A Shan Tao Yun Investigation"‎ 2010 - 384 pages Shan, a former investigator from Beijing, must solve the mystery of the assassination to save the accused man, the only person who can help his imprisoned son . "Eye of the Raven: A Mystery of Colonial America‎" 2010 - 400 pages

Book list from Google

Bazell, Josh

Bazell, Josh "Beat the Reaper" Little, Brown: 2009

This is a fun book. No doubt about it. Consider the first sentence: "So I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me!" The protagonist is a former hit man for the mob who talked his way into going to medical school with the Federal Witness Protection Program. They place him in the very worse neighborhood in the very worse hospital where the last place any self-respecting mob boss would seek medical attention until, you guessed it, one does. The fun begins.

Along with very educational foot notes and a talent for medicine and a huge desire to stay alive, Dr. Peter Brown, an intern at Manhattan's worst hospital proves once again he is one able man who can not only treat his patients well but stay alive in the process.

It doesn't hurt that the author is a new doctor himself with the background of knowing the medical profession and one giant talent for writing. Although it is doubtful the author is a former hit man, he stays out of the story and delivers one heck of a good yarn. Trust me on this, you will not sneak a look at the ending because you will be too engrossed in this book. Get this book now before it is in paperback because many places such as Barnes and Noble have it on the discount shelf.


Name of author: Josh Bazell
Dates of birth and death (if applicable): unknown
Place of birth: unknown
Education: Bazell graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in English Literature. He entered the PhD program in English Literature at Duke University before earning his MD from Columbia University . He is currently a medical resident at the University of California, San Francisco.
Literary movement associated with author: This author has written only one book while an intern and it is too early to classify where his writings will end up.
Nationality: American
Notable award(s) or ideas (s):
Books and years when published: See above.

Cameron Julia

Cameron, Julia "The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size" Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam: 2007

I wish I could say that this book was responsible for my being slender and thin. It wasn't; however I gained a lot of insight from the problem, but not enough to make a difference. In the introduction to the book, the author states:

"This book is dedicated to my beloved mother, who suffered both from being overweight and from may dark depressions about it. These struggles impaired her ability to lead a creatively fulfilling life. I loved her dearly and miss her deeply."

Overweight is not the problem. I knew that. In a recent article about Daniel Wright who is on a program, The Biggest Loser, he stated he was the heaviest contestant in the show's history weighing 454 pounds. So far he has lost 142 pounds. At one point, he was eliminated from the show because he lost only 52 pounds. He stated he had to concentrate on other issues. He stated: "I realize I'm never going to be a champion of weight loss," he says. "Listen, Erik Chopin was on the show and he lost more than 200 pounds, but he never dealt with his issues and he went back up. I don't want to lose weight now and then lose in life later."

In the chapter, "The Second Tool: The Journal", Cameron recommends that the reader puts down everything he or she feels like eating. This is more or less a trick to get out of eating what it is we are craving for. We do become more skillful in learning why we eat and this book goes a long way in discovering the reasons why we overeat; but it does not go far enough. As I said, this book did help me in discovering and uncovering the reason why I was overeating; but it did not go far enough because food and overeating is only the symptom of our problems.

I have a blog about becoming more healthier. Paying attention to what I am eating in only one of the tools that I use. It is by no means a significant one. In this book, the overeating aspect of eating addiction is put front and center in the arena of life. I don't think it belongs there. I do recommend it as a means to discover the particular pathway that will work for the indivividual to become healthier however. I loved its emphasis on journaling because it is one of the ways I have helped myself. Writing has been one of the single most important ways that I have for getting out of the morass of depression and post traumatic stress disorder problems. I like this author very much, but if I had given this book a miss it would have been alright with me.

Cameron, Julia "The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life" Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam: 1998

Julia Cameron writes in many genres and has been doing so for many years. She has been writing for a multitude of reasons. According to the author: "Writing is how, and it sometimes seems why, I do my life." In this book, Cameron writes about the tools that she uses and her path in writing. She states she left out those things that were not a part of her experience or that they are something that other books on writing have written about very well. For instance, she will not teach the reader how to write a query letter or find a market for your work. The writing life is working on your life as a whole and that is what the book is about. It is about writing for the sake of writing, for the sheer unadulterated joy of moving the pen or curser over the page.

The Right to Write is a birthright, a spiritual dowry, according to Cameron, that gives us the keys to the kingdom. One's higher powers speak to us through writing. Some call it inspiration, the Muses, Angels, God, and so on. I call this ability my Spiritual Center. Cameron states it connects us to something larger than ourselves and allows us to live with great spirit and optimism.

This book is Cameron's attempt to dismantle the negative mythology that surrounds the writing in this culture and as a teacher she has first hand knowledge of this. For her, the writing life "is a simple life, self-empowered and self-empowering" one.

There is much about this book that is fun. There is a lot of this book that discusses what keeps us from writing whether we are writing a book that will end up as a replacement for "Moby Dick" or a cook book for our church rummage sale. The main thing that keeps most of us from writing at least for me is fear and that is echoed in the book:

"The fears may not be conscious, and that's what makes it tricky. When we are procrastinating about writing something or someone, we are always being backed off by our fears. It may be disguised as our business or our "need to focus" or any number of other distractions, but it boils down to our fear of revealing ourselves to others and ourselves." (page 89)

Cameron states that we are taught by this culture to think of writing as a commitment, as a state occasion, as torture, a great many things except for its dominant nature: fun. "The Right to Write" is a book that almost tricks the reader into seeing writing as just that, fun and a way of exploring the world in a fun way.

The book is arranged into short readable chapters such as "Let Yourself Write" and "Let Yourself Listen" and at the end of suggested exercises. I did not do the exercises as I have my own ways of doing what is in the chapters. Cameron also puts in personal information of what is happening in her life with her considerable friends and family. She shares what works with her and her daughter in beating writer's blocks. She leans towards the Eastern Religion as many writers do and includes Buddhist insights.

I read "The Artist Way" many years ago and gain a lot of insight from that book. It was written after her divorce from her first marriage with the director, Martin Scorsese. For most people, divorce is a rough time and this author found a way of dealing with this traumatic time and with expressing her artistic abilities. Luckily, it has made itself into a way for other people to help them into dealing with their own life. I certainly have felt this author's achievements and lessons learned to be a boom for my life as well.




Name of author: Julia Cameron
Dates of birth and death (if applicable):March 4, 1948
Place of birth: Libertyville, Illinois, U.S.A.
Education: Georgetown University, Fordham
Occupation: teacher, author, filmmaker, playwright, journlist
Literary movement associated with author:" The Artist's Way "
Nationality: American
Notable award(s) or ideas (s): Known for integrating art and writing. She states creativity is an authentic spiritual path. Cameron is most known for the book, "The Artist's Way".
Books and years when published:

Nonfiction

• The Artist's Way Every Day: A Year of Creative Living (Tarcher, 2009)
• Prayers to the Great Creator: Prayers and Declarations for a Meaningful Life (Tarcher, 2008)
• The Writing Diet: Write Yourself Right-Size (Tarcher, 2007; ISBN 1585425710 )
• Floor Sample (Tarcher, 2006; ISBN 1-58542-494-3), a memoir
• How to Avoid Making Art (2006; ISBN 1-58542-438-2), illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron
• The Sound of Paper (Tarcher, 2004; Hardcover ISBN 1-58542-288-6)
• Supplies: A Troubleshooting Guide for Creative Difficulties (Tarcher, 2003; Rev&Updtd edition ISBN 1-58542-212-6)
• Walking in this World (Tarcher, 2003; Reprint edition ISBN 1-58542-261-4)
• The Artist's Way, 10th Annv edition (Tarcher, 2002; ISBN 1-58542-146-4)
• Inspirations: Meditations from The Artist's Way (Tarcher, 2001;ISBN 1-58542-102-2)
• God is Dog Spelled Backwards (Tarcher, 2000; ISBN 158542062X)
• God is No Laughing Matter (Tarcher, 2000; ISBN 1585420654}
• Supplies: A Pilot's Manual for Creative Flight (2000)
• The Artist's Date Book (Tarcher, 1999; ISBN 0874776538 ), illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron Evans
• Money Drunk Money Sober (Ballantine Wellspring, 1999; ISBN 0345432657)
• The Writing Life (Sounds True, 1999; ISBN 1564557251)
• Transitions (Tarcher, 1999; ISBN 0-87477-995-2)
• The Artist's Way at Work (Pan, 1998; ISBN 0330373196)
• Blessings (Tarcher, 1998; ISBN 0-87477-906-5)
• The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life (Tarcher, 1998; ISBN 1-58542-009-3)
• Heart Steps (Tarcher, 1997; ISBN 0-87477-899-9)
• The Vein of Gold (1997; ISBN 0-87477-836-0)
• The Artist's Way Morning Pages Journal (Tarcher, 1995; ISBN 0-87477-886-7)
• The Money Drunk (1993)
• The Artist's Way (1992)

Fiction

• Popcorn: Hollywood Stories (Really Great Books, 2000; ISBN 1-893329-12-7)
• The Dark Room (Carroll & Graf Pub,1998; ISBN 0-7867-0564-7)

Musicals

• Avalon
• Magellan
• The Medium at Large

Plays

• Four Roses
• Public Lives
• The Animal in the Trees

Poetry

• This Earth (Sounds True, 1997; ISBN 1564555496)
• Prayers for the little ones (Renaissance Books, 1999; ISBN 1580630480)
• Prayers to the nature spirits (Renaissance Books, 1999; ISBN 1580630472
• The Quiet Animal

Film

• "God's Will"

Source: Wikipedia